Why I Hate Stupid Protagonists

I've always hated stupid characters. In books, on television or in films, nothing will make me throw a book across the room faster than an idiot plot. Which can make it hard to watch a lot of television, or read some fiction. It's not so bad that I've given up fiction entirely, like a friend of mine (though his complaints have more to do with "violence" in fiction versus the reality he's experienced). But it means that I do a lot MST3K-style commentary. Sometimes while I'm watching or reading, sometimes after the fact.

Over the years, though, I noticed that there is no plot so idiotic, no character so gullible and brain dead but that somebody will defend the story. Those people aren't stupid.* Clearly those people are getting something out of the story that makes it worth their while to gloss over or ignore the things that utterly destroy my willing suspension of disbelief. And I have my price too. Give me smart characters and a sharp plot and I will cheerfully overlook wooden acting, tin-eared dialogue, cheap looking sets, lame special effects and laughably bad "fight" scenes. Other people will jettison smart characters or clever plotting for snappy dialogue or nifty special effects** or non-stop action. When I object to something egregiously dumb, they'll either simply shrug it off--"But look! Pretty!***"--or they'll try to rationalize it away.

"Fanwanking" it's called in some circles; that's when fans of a story (be it novels, tv or film) work out their own rationalizations for otherwise stupid character actions or moronic plot points. And I'll admit that I fanwank occasionally too. It can be fun. I have a few "guilty pleasure" stories I enjoy despite the arrogantly, aggressively stupid characters and/or plots. So sue me.

It's half the fun of reading science fiction, in fact. You know, the "literature of ideas"? Although in fairness, good science fiction doesn't require fanwanking so much as you simply enjoy trying to anticipate where the writer is going to take you. Or you extrapolate from what he's presented to work out the backstory, the history and technology and psychology and sociology and economy of the world he's created. In the best of it, the writer constantly stays one step ahead of you, but every surprise is--in retrospect--inevitable, given what came before. And that's a damn hard act to pull off, which is why 90% of science fiction, as Theodore Sturgeon told us, is crap. (His corollary: 90% of everything is crap.)

For a long time I ascribed my burning hatred for idiot plots to being a gamer. As a long time role-player and wargamer, and an unrepentant rules lawyer and power gamer at that, I just naturally approached every situation with an eye toward the most effective way to deal with the threat. I've even had people I was ranting at arguing with discussing a story with say as much. "Oh, you're just thinking like a gamer" or "Yeah, but if you were really there you wouldn't be so calm and analytical."

And that last point is a valid one. But it doesn't invalidate my complaints. A good writer, if he's going to depend on the characters behaving suboptimally, is going to set that up in advance so that it rings true. If they overlook better solutions to their problems, he's going to make sure there's a damn good reason--in-story--to justify it. And I'm okay with that. But that's not what I'm talking about when I discuss idiot plots and idiot characters.

But over the course of Orycon (the local SF convention here) last month, something crystallized in my brain. My friend Rory, a martial artist and jail guard and CERT leader and trainer has at least twice now done some panels on the use of force and on what real violence is like. One of the things he points out is that, as a CERT team member or leader, he wants things to go as smoothly as possible. He wants every possible advantage. "If there's drama, if it's a close fought win, we've fucked up."

And that's true of everyone going into a real fight.

It's also true of every character in every story--which is the revelation that came to me. That's why I hate idiot plots so very, very much. The writer wants things to be dramatic and exciting. The more dramatic and exciting, the better. But the characters want to solve their problems as quickly, easily and safely as they possibly can. If they're not at least as smart as the writer (and, ideally, his even smarter friends who are giving him feedback), he's cheating. He is cheating his readers to make his job easier, every bit as much as a butcher cheats his customers by putting his thumb on the scale or a sales clerk shortchanging them.

Characters can--and do, and should--make mistakes. Paragons of virtue are boring. But they have to be honest mistakes, or mistakes driven by personality and temperament. Maybe the character really is too angry to think, or too scared. Maybe he really is so arrogant that he deliberately overlooks an easy win, but the writer had better sell the hell out of it if that's the case. Too many lazy writers have used that dodge to justify arrogant stupidity. Whatever the reason, the writer had damn well better make it clear to the reader or viewer. Otherwise, he's cheating--and insulting his readers as well.

Not an earthshaking revelation, I admit. The tension between the writer's desire for drama and the character's desire to succeed is hardly new. But looking at it with Rory's words ringing in my ears really focused it for me. My map of how and why stories work (or don't) is a little sharper now.


*Okay, some of them are. But that's universally true of every possible subset of humanity and thus irrelevant.

**It's been...thirty years or more, but I still remember my youngest brother's one line review of some horror movie he went to see (Scanners, I think). "What a gyp--only one head exploded!" Say what you will about his taste in movies, he knew what he liked.

***Or something less superficial, I suppose.